Fritinancy

Word of the week: Villanelle

“Killing Eve,” the new series created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge*, premiered earlier this month on BBC America. The show – which Vogue called “part spy drama, part serial killer thriller, part absurdist comedy” – is based on novellas by the British author Luke Jennings that are known collectively as the Villanelle series, after the codename of one of the principal characters. From a synopsis of the books:

Oxana Vorontsova, a beautiful but supremely dangerous psychopath, is sprung from a Russian prison, and reborn as the glamorous Villanelle. The price of her new existence: to be trained in the dark arts of assassination, and to kill on demand.

 

“Villanelle” is a dictionary word with a backstory, but not the one Jennings provides.

April linkfest

You know how Google names its Android versions after sweets like Kit Kat and Marshmallow? Well, writes Justin Pot, Microsoft should name its updates after dogs. (How to Geek)

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Speaking of Kit Kat, the brand is hugely popular in Japan, in part because “Kit Kat” translates to “You will surely win.” (Fortune; h/t MJF)

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A century ago, dozens of American girls were named Milady because of the success of a new product: the Milady Décolleté Gillette safety razor, developed to remove underarm hair. (And did you know that “underarm” was coined as a euphemism for “armpit”?) (Baby Name Wizard)

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Word of the week: Truckle

“Well, Paul Ryan, you’re a free man now,” began the New York Times editorial that appeared on April 11, the day the Wisconsin congressman announced he’d be stepping down as House speaker and leaving Congress in January. Three paragraphs down, the editorial counseled Ryan about how to put his liberation to good use:

You don’t have to worry anymore about weathering a primary challenger from the far right. You don’t have to truckle before a blast of presidential tweets. You can use your remaining authority and credibility with your colleagues to pass legislation to make it harder for the president to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and other officials at the Department of Justice. On your way out the door, on that crucial question, you still have a chance to put yourself on the right side of history.

To truckle before stands out in that paragraph. Its meaning is clear enough in context – something about deference, obsequiousness, sycophancy – but where does it come from?

On the Visual Thesaurus: The Name of the Year Tournament

My latest column for the Visual Thesaurus, “Naming the Name of the Year,” looks at the quirky and wildly popular Name of the Year Tournament (NOTY), started in 1983 by some Penn undergraduates and still going strong. One of those undergrads was Stefan Fatsis, who may be better known as the author of several books, including Word Freak, and as an occasional contributor to NPR. I interviewed Stefan for the column, as well as Laura Wattenberg (creator of the Baby Name Wizard website and author of a highly regarded book about baby naming) and Sam Gutelle, who helped revive NOTY in 2012.

 

The paywall on this column has been lifted, so even non-subscribers can read all about this year’s NOTY contenders, including Miracle Crimes, Babucarr Fatty, Forbes Thor Kiddoo, and Mahogany Loggins.

Also paywall-free: all of my Visual Thesaurus columns from 2017 and earlier, on subjects as wide ranging as failure, “crispy,” “journey,” and “ish.” 

 

Word of the week: Demonetization

Nasim Najafi Aghdam, the 39-year-old woman who shot three people at YouTube’s San Bruno, California, headquarters on April 3 before killing herself, is said to have been angry about the company’s policies, especially demonetization. According to an article in Entrepreneur, she had written on her website: “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”

Nasim Aghdam, via San Bruno Police.

How did Wakanda get its name?

I saw Black Panther on opening weekend – in Oakland, California, birthplace of the film’s director, Ryan Coogler – and have been thinking ever since about the names in the movie. I’m not a comic-book fan and had never read the source material or seen Captain America: Civil War, the 2016 film that introduced the Black Panther character to movie audiences, so I came to the experience with fresh eyes and ears.

And I came away with questions. Where, for starters, did “Wakanda” – the name of the tiny, technologically advanced African country that’s home to the Black Panther character – come from?

 

The fictional country of Wakanda, via SciFi Stack Exchange. Theories vary about Wakanda’s location; see the comments on the entry.

 

Word of the week: Frunk

The Volkswagen Beetle had one from its very beginnings in the 1930s. The Chevrolet Corvair had one throughout its production run, from 1960 to 1969. Several Porsche models had one. So did the Renault 10 and the Tatra 603.

But not until Tesla came up with the Model S, in 2012, did any automaker deem it necessary to coin a word for the feature all these cars have in common: a trunk in the front. Or as Tesla chooses to call it, the frunk.

 

Tesla frunk, via Jalopnik.